Bel Borba Aqui

"Bel Borba Aqui" is an amiable, once-over-lightly documentary about the prolific artist Bel Borba, whose outdoor works, judged by this movie, seem to be everywhere in his hometown of Salvador de Bahia, Brazil. The film, by Burt Sun and Andre Costantini, is a celebration of the man and his work - for critical perspective, you'll have to look elsewhere.

Most of the footage shows the artist at work, creating his large-scale sculptures, mosaics, paintings and murals with such materials as steel, sand, clay, recycled Coke bottles and wood from local boats. Sometimes he speaks - he loves to talk - and sometimes he just stares in contemplation at his works in progress. He jokes and laughs and clearly relishes the spotlight.

We watch him create a very large Christmas tree and a large dog out of pop bottles; use chalk to mark where he wants welders to cut large slabs of steel; and add a pig's head to clay sculptures at an outdoor market. In one impressive scene, he has one of his sculptures lowered into the sea by a crane, then taken out encrusted with barnacles and other bits of life.

For good or ill, we're spared the usual talking heads, and biographical material is not abundant, though we do see him enjoying some of the fruits of his labors - he appears to have done well for himself. The film doesn't see any contradictions between the man and his work, which is folkloric, mostly upbeat, often humorous. Both art and artist are outsized and entertaining, and that's about all that "Bel Borba Aqui" has to say.